


Such stuff as dreams are made on

by Sharpiefan



Series: The Shakespeare Series [22]
Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Childbirth, Post-Canon, References to Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8203168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharpiefan/pseuds/Sharpiefan
Summary: Upstairs, Robbie's wife was giving birth to his child and naturally he was on tenterhooks about the whole thing. He had not been able to concentrate on anything all morning





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Corton Abbey is Robbie and Bee's forever home. The house itself is Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, but cafemusain and I moved it to be near the sea for Bee. Another birth story... though from the perspective of the father this time. Originally posted on the London Life RPG fanfic board.

_We are such stuff_  
_As dreams are made on, and our little life_  
_Is rounded with a sleep._

~ The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1

**Corton Abbey, February 1816**

Upstairs, Robbie's wife was giving birth to his child and naturally he was on tenterhooks about the whole thing. He had not been able to concentrate on anything all morning, from his usual recourse to Shakespeare to a treatise purporting to contain new remedies for colic in horses which had recently come across his desk. If he sat down, he wanted to stand up and when he was standing, he found himself pacing the room.

Usually when he was in this sort of contrary mood, he would saddle a horse and go for a ride, but he did not wish to be away from the house. Anyway, the weather was wet and grey – not raining now, although it had done so earlier and promised to do so again before too long.

He stared at the chessboard without really seeing it, got up and leaned on the windowsill, peering out through wet glass into the overcast day. It was raining again. Maybe it hadn't stopped when he had thought it had, just eased off a little? He had forgotten how wet England was – and his leg ached dully on days like this, too, which was the height of injustice, considering just how many wet rainy days there were in a year.

A door opened and closed elsewhere in the house and he turned, but the footsteps did not come anywhere near his study. He heaved a sigh and dropped into his chair, turning back to the treatise on colic.

He tossed the pamphlet aside impatiently when he realised that he had read the same sentence five times and still had no idea what it said. How had Richard coped when Cordelia gave birth? Or Emerson, when it had been Viola's turn?

Bee was strong and healthy, at least; although he did not know that it made much difference at all in the end, logic and common sense dictated that it must make some difference. This was the first child she had carried to term, however, and childbirth always carried some elements of danger.

He had no doubt that she would tease him thoroughly were she to learn of his distraction and inability to concentrate, with comments about now he knew how she felt seeing him ride off to battle.

He needed something to do, but if he showed up in the tack-room, the stable staff would look at him as if he'd grown a second head and diplomatically pack him back off into the house. He glanced at the case that held his pistols. Rubbing them down might soothe his jangled nerves, but Bee would not welcome him near her if his hands smelt of gun-oil.

The dullness of the weather failed to provide any sort of distraction. He shoved his hands in his pockets and began pacing again, trying to calm his unnecessary, though natural, fears by running through Shakespeare, though he brought himself up short when he realised that it was Mark Anthony's _Friends,_ _Romans,_ _countrymen..._ speech. _I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him_ was not a particularly cheerful thought, and he forced himself onto another tack.

 _If we shadows have offended,_  
_Think but this and all is mended_  
_That you have but slumbered here_  
_While these visions did appear..._

A Midsummer Night's Dream was, generally, too light and airy for him, as a rule, but it was a good distraction to try to remember Puck's closing speech when he had not read the play in an age. He reached the end with still no news from the chamber where Bee was labouring, but a glance at the clock showed that time had slowed to an imperceptible crawl: it was barely fifteen minutes since he had thrown the colic pamphlet aside. He fished it out from where it had landed under a chair, and set it on his desk again – he would read it through properly once he was not so distracted by worry, and turned to pull a volume off the shelf without looking at the title until he had it in his hand.

Richard II... Well, that was as good as anything to read, he thought, and turned to John of Gaunt's famous speech. The 'precious stone set in a silver sea' was as vivid a word picture as any, and he began to read, speaking the words aloud to hear them, an exercise which forced him to read slowly and to concentrate.

_Methinks I am a prophet new inspired_  
_And thus expiring do foretell of him:_  
_His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,_  
_For violent fires soon burn out themselves;_  
_Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;_  
_He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;_  
_With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:_  
_Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,_  
_Consuming means, soon preys upon itself._

There were more sounds from the other end of the house, but no note of alarm and he consciously turned back to his text. Bee had made him promise solemnly that he would not try to enter their room until he was fetched; she did not want him there, in a place dedicated to the womanly secrets of childbirth, and he would feel clumsy and out of place if he went in, even if those in attendance would admit him.

_This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,_  
_This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,_  
_This other Eden, demi-paradise,_  
_This fortress built by Nature for herself_

A banging door and feet heading towards him made him drop the book as a knock came on the door of the study. There was barely time to draw breath before the door was pushed open regardless of what answer he gave, and the maid gave a small nervous bob. “If you please, sir, Missus has had her babe...”

He nearly pushed past her in his haste to reach his wife.

Her room was still full of people, but was clean and tidy now, with no sign of what had happened other than Bee lying in their bed, tired, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead, looking down tenderly at the bundle cradled in her arms.

“Bee!”

“Robbie.” She smiled, freed a hand and patted the bed beside her. He needed no second invitation to sit down to see.

He couldn't really see much but she looked up with a slightly sleepily fond expression. “Would you like to hold him?”

“Him? Me? Bee, I've never...”

“You're his father, you should meet him properly. Here – you need to support his head. In the crook of your arm, like that.”

“I'll drop him - or worse!"

“Stuff and nonsense. He is not that heavy and you are not that clumsy.”

Bee likely had no idea just how reassuring Robbie found her matter-of-fact tone, and before he knew it, he had his newborn son cradled in his arm, and was staring down in enthralled fascination at his son's tiny face with its tiny perfect button nose and the shock of fine dark hair on top of his head. He had not even known newborn babies could have hair!

“Henry Fitzgerald – Hal Fitzgerald,” he tried, thoroughly enchanted by the miniature person who blinked sleepily up at him before scrunching his face up in a huge yawn.

“Henry Hazard Fitzgerald,” Bee corrected him, leaning her head on Robbie's shoulder.

“Hal Hazard Fitzgerald,” Robbie said, offering his son a finger and marvelling at the minuscule perfect hand that grasped it. “He's perfect. Just like his mother.”


End file.
